Alabama

Traffic moves along Water Street in downtown Mobile, Ala. Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson wants to make Water Street more pedestrian friendly and the city's waterfront more accessible. (Press-Register/Mike Kittrell)

The rest of Water Street is no treat, either. Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, in an effort to draw more pedestrians to the city's waterfront – home to the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center, the future GulfQuest National Maritime Museum and Cooper Riverside Park – wants to examine better pedestrian availability along the six-lane Water Street.

Other walkability and bicycling issues abound downtown. To address them, the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission's Metropolitan Transportation Organization will include a downtown Mobile walkability/accessibility plan in its fiscal year 2015 budget.

Kevin Harrison, director of transportation with the commission, said unspent planning money will go toward the plan, which could begin sometime in the fall. The money comes from federal tax sources, and cannot be spent on capital projects.

Harrison said the plan is needed because of several factors: Stimpson's interest in making the downtown area more pedestrian friendly, the city's application for a federal TIGER II grant to reconstruct Broad Street and add more pedestrian/bicycling access to it and the city's pursuit of more federal money to make sidewalks downtown handicap-accessible.

"This is an important opportunity to partner with the SARPC/MPO to identify ways that we can make Mobile more walkable," Stimpson said on Wednesday. "Easy access to the city's wonderful resources and cultural destinations is paramount to becoming the most business and family-friendly city in America."

Harrison did not provide an estimated cost to the plan. The commission's annual budget will be approved in September, and funding also has to be approved by the Alabama Department of Transportation.

"The scope of work hasn't been written yet," Harrison said, noting that he would like to meet with the city engineers, the Downtown Mobile Alliance and others to determine how much the plan should entail. "I'd like to see everyone involved to see what kind of cost estimates there are."

One potential element could be the inclusion of bike lane along the Hank Aaron Loop, Harrison said.

"I'm not saying it's something we will do, but it is something a consultant can look at including in the plan," Harrison said.

The plan would take, Harrison said, between six months to one year to complete.

"What I hope to get out of the study is real project with real cost estimates that can be provided to the city," Harrison said.

Councilman Levon Manzie, who represents the downtown area, said the council is "100 percent" behind the study.

"I think it's important to our goal of having a hustling and bustling downtown for accessibility to be increased for pedestrian traffic," Manzie said. "I think (officials) will glean a lot of great information from that study."